Tibetan exile group in India denies Chinese accusations

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DHARMSALA, India (AP) — The leader of a Tibetan exile group in northern India denied on Thursday Chinese news reports that its activists planned to launch suicide attacks.

"Relying on these baseless allegations, the Chinese Communist Party hopes to hijack our non-violent struggle and weaken the Tibetan independence movement," Tsewang Rigzin, the president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, said at a news conference in Dharmsala, the location of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile in India.

Last week Chinese media quoted Rigzin telling an Italian newspaper that suicide bombers could be used to win Tibet's independence. They also blamed the Tibetan Youth Congress for masterminding 1987-89 riots in the region's capital, Lhasa.

Rigzin denied the comments. "I am not quoted correctly. I never said that we would plan suicide attacks or resort to violence," he said.

"We have always campaigned for Tibet's independence based on the historical truth and non-violence and have never resorted to any terrorist activities or suicide attacks to achieve our goal of Tibet's independence," he said of the youth congress, which was founded in October 1970.

Rigzin called the Chinese government the "real terrorist," claiming that more than 1 million Tibetans were killed under about half a century of Chinese rule.

The youth congress has always said it wants independence for Tibet — a different approach from that of Tibetans' exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who has said that he wants more autonomy for the region, not independence.

Chinese communist troops entered Tibet in 1950, and Beijing says the region has belonged to China for centuries. Many Tibetans, however, say they were effectively an independent nation for most of that time.

The Dalai Lama has been based in India since fleeing Tibet in 1959 during a failed uprising against Chinese rule.


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